Hey guys. So I've got an Epiphone SG Prophecy custom, which has been sitting unplayed, slightly uptuned and neglected for more than a year. I came back and restrung it yesterday, and when I played it noticed the neck is so bowed towards the nut that intonation is out (Bad enough to be completely out of tune if I use the 5th fret method)

Thing is, I've just spent 200 bucks on nut/bridge/pin and machinehead replacements for my acoustic and I cant really afford to take it into any store to be set up, everything else is perfect except the action so I was wondering if anyone's experienced enough to instruct me on the proper way to lower the action

I've done a little with my other guitars but never an electric, kind of hesitant to without some instruction.

Much love in advance

james4

12-06-2012 06:16 PM

which direction is it bowed? my guess is that the string tension is too much for the truss rod right now? like the fretboard is concave?

if that's the case, then just start by tightening the truss rod. Turn the adjustment nut clockwise about a quarter turn at a time- you can do a half turn if you feel comfortable enough, the idea is just to not overdo it and put a ton of stress on the neck.

adjust the truss rod until the fretboard is flat, then you can start dealing with the saddle height. The SG has a tune-o-matic style bridge, which means there's no individual saddle adjustment..so you just raise or lower the whole bridge with the screws or thumbwheels on either side of the bridge.

once that's an acceptable height it's just onto intonation, which just involves turning the small screws on the side of the bridge to finely adjust the vibrating string length. Moving the saddle closer to or further from the nut will bring the frets all in tune with one another, it's just a matter of patience and a couple minutes with a tuner

that's a pretty basic overview, but there are already tons of well-written instructions for each part all over the internet. Just give it a quick google and you should get the more in-depth details you need, or ask if I should be more clear on anything :cheers:

Mr.Pink101

12-07-2012 07:02 AM

This was perfect, thank you so much man. Once I had the truss tightened to bring the fretboard back down in line the intonation was just slightly out, your advice helped me with that too :)